Dave Liebman | Steve Dalachinsky | The Fallout of Dreams | RogueArt Jazz

Dave Liebman: Musically conversing with the spoken word is quite a challenge, even more than with a dancer or painter. There are the words and images and then there is the delivery by, in this case, the poet himself. My reactions are probably not much different than anyone else’s would be when hearing an expression or phrase, but to translate that into the horn or other instruments is quite daunting. For this project, my old friend Richie Beirach was around and joined us, another Brooklyn Jewish guy from the same hood. The title poem truly depicts our life in 1950/60s’s Brooklyn, NY…with all its irony, pathos and joy. This was quite a meeting portraying a host of emotions from the three of us.
Steve Dalachinsky: Long relationships even with their lags in time or because of them often present uncanny knowings/empathy/repartee/ the voices at their best mix the way fine blended drinks mix – no dabbling but pure commitment to the work / no false parity or well rehearsed well trained actors doing their parts / just 2 old friends meeting & greeting to share languages/ opinions/feelings/.
2 guys who grow up sharing similar joys despair passion – the true growin’ up blues – drifting apart – reuniting – finding that certain dreams can fall into place – 2 old friends meet become 3 > sweet music is made / tough music / tough words… tough love…. Continue reading

Tarbaby | Oliver Lake | Marc Ducret | Fanon | RogueArt Jazz

Violently, this album begins violently, it’s unavoidable, even though the music itself can never be as violent as the subject matter it evokes, it creates the similar effect Frantz Fanon aimed at in “The Wretched of the Earth”……Introducing pianist Orrin Evans is recalling he studied with Kenny Barron, amongst others, before playing with an array of talents from Bobby Watson to Mos Def. Introducing bass player Eric Revis is recalling he studied with Ellis Marsalis, amongst others, before playing with an array of talents from Branford Marsalis to Ken Vandermark. Introducing drummer Nasheet Waits is driving the rhythm compass wild. It is remembering the son of drummer great Freddy Waits (who played with Bill Dixon and Ella Fitzgerald, Stevie Wonder and Pharaoh Sanders), sponsored at a very young age by Max Roach and Ed Blackwell, acquired power by playing with indomitable leading figures: Andrew Hill, Jason Moran, William Parker, Tony Malaby, Peter Brötzmann… A trio capable of a metamorphic energy, developing itself into a myriad of shimmering shapes, this time with guitarist Marc Ducret, the raging master of brightening and darkening, and with saxophone player Oliver Lake, with his misconduct and turndowns, both embodying/summoning the other, the alteration, as it were with Fanon. Tarbaby and its guests of honor offer a music which is constantly born, it breaks free of its chains, it exacerbates and alters itself, it gives analogical value to the necessary but unclassifiable distinctions, to impressionism and expressionism, to thinking and acting, to order and disorder, it is the music of another possible world, it redistributes wealth as it produces it.… Alexandre Pierrepont, excerpt from the liner notes Continue reading

Jacques Coursil | Alan Silva | FreeJazzArt | RogueArt Jazz

The three free sessions of Free Jazz Art, in duo with Alan Silva, came out in one go (with Christophe Hauser, sound engineer and subtle arranger). Alan knew all the procedures in advance having lived through the same experience with Dixon though at a different period. It was easy, because he and I are old friends, having so often played together and so often wandered in the hectic New York of the sixties. Already at that time, he had found his remarkable style of bowed double bass. — Jacques Coursil, excerpt from liner notes Continue reading

Joëlle Léandre & Nicole Mitchell | Sisters Where | RogueArt Jazz

Neither one nor the other has a role to play: Joelle and Nicole are there to invent. One would be nothing but softness, the other nothing but force? But here it is that the first flies off in full force and the other accompanies all in softness. Perfectly pitched. Total improvisation. Musical dance on the jazzistic fields flying carpet. If needs be, they invent each other forming that double woman who has fear of nothing, who does not retreat in the face of any joke any savagery any melancholy any beauty any liberty. Now and again the strings have breath and the flute vibrates. What is there of intentional, of prepared, of established by tacit convention? Nothing or next to nothing, who cares: these two virtuosos have nothing to do with their virtuosity if not to put it to the service of quivering developments. — François-René Simon, excerpt from liner notes Continue reading

Nicole Mitchell’s Sonic Projections | The Secret Escapades of Velvet Anderson | RougeArt Jazz

Nicole Mitchell “the Velvet Lounge was a stellar environment for the development of creative music in Chicago and Fred Anderson provided support, encouragement, and inspiration to countless musicians for generations, while garnering an international audience for the music… He was a quiet man who rarely shared his ongoing struggles with the city and with local gangsters to keep things running. ‘The Secret Escapades of Velvet Anderson’ likens Fred Anderson to a superhero, whose humble exterior masked his real-life heroic trials and tribulations beyond the public’s awareness……The album is an animated illustration to further deepen the public’s impression of a real-life hero of Chicago, who walked with us and fought for us. I wanted to make Fred smile, to think that in this animation he can be a secret agent working against forces of musical demise.” Continue reading

East-West Collective | Humeurs | RogueArt Jazz

The traveler listens, and says: I was called by a name that is not mine, and that is revealed by music. I barely had the time to assemble a bouquet of our hands and feet and to hang from the rope of our bodies. I heard this voice, the orgeat of this voice: what is happening to us? And with a more evasive tone: who are we, really? I stumbled on the chimney of dreams. I was with scarlet crows.Alexandre Pierrepont (translation: Remain Tessler) Continue reading

Evan Parker | Matthew Shipp | Rex, Wrecks & XXX | RogueArt Jazz

Two (exceptional) musicians two backgrounds, two approaches to music, two generations, an ocean between them: at the end, only one music, unique, outstanding, made of listening and respect of each other. The purpose is not to limit themselves to what they might have in common, but to expand the realm of possibility by assimilating in the moment what the other can bring. Even if everything is improvised, studio work of the first CD, leaving more time for reflection, is the perfect complement to the second CD, live, giving free rein to spontaneity. Continue reading

Rob Mazurek Exploding Star Orchestra | Matter Anti-Matter | RogueArt Jazz

Out of the 63 or 67 satellites around Jupiter, fifty or more of them were discovered since the year 2000 (since the “elections” of George W. Bush and Vladimir Putin, since the busting of the Internet bubble and the market launch of the first USB key: it’s all a question of scale, right?). We are told their orbits are far apart, eccentric, inclined and retrograde. That they do as they please, heads in the clouds, that they dance. It’s your turn to dance. You understand you are a moon in all its phases simultaneously. Let me say that again. Anybody can be the root, says Roscoe Mitchell. Everything is seed, says Novalis. Ascension Dream Phoenix, says Rob Mazurek. A feast. — Alexandre Pierrepont (translation Romain Tesler) Continue reading

Michel Edelin Quartet | Resurgence | RogueArt Jazz

Here is a group that is not mere circumstance a group that has a sense of durability! Eighteen years after an already accomplished first recording, the four musicians show in any case that the disorganized effects of commercial culture have no influence on an artistic desire newly reaffirmed in this gushing Resurgence, leaving eleven themes/sources drifting on its unique current linked in a distanced aesthetic which does not challenge the history of jazz but is known to be gaily unsubdued by current trends and to codes which guide a certain “European jazz”. — Bernard Aime (Translation Marie Alleyrat) Continue reading

Joshua Abrams Quartet | Unknown Known | RogueArt Jazz

RogueArt continues its Chicago jazz love affair with Unknown Known a quartet featuring Josh Abrams on bass, David Boykin on tenor sax, Jason Adasiewicz on vibes, and Frank Rosaly on drums. In many ways, Unknown Known sticks to those Chicago roots: even it its wilder flights, it always has a foot planted in composition and structure. It’s jazz that comes up under the tutelage of the AACM, which constantly pushed boundaries without ever entirely dispensing with them. Continue reading